Monday, 13 January 2014

Note: I have tried to cover a lot of minute details in this post with a lot of research on this subject. If you find it too long to read, then please do not begin. On the other hand, I assure you that you have a bounty of knowledge to take away by reading this post.

While rapes, genocides and terrorist attacks are the major issues of concern for us today, this post too talks about something that must make headlines, much more important than the ones aforementioned but brutally ignored and downplayed by governments, organizations and companies. While humans are proud of their technological advancements, a much larger number of life forms that are considered 'lesser' than us wince from the pain of it and it's time we did something about our madness.

Some questions to begin with:

A few years ago, there were a lot of birds on the sky. Whenever I used to look up, there were sparrows, crows, and many other birds that I couldn't even recognize. Where have they disappeared suddenly?

After sunset, the loud sound of crickets on the roadside was very common. What happened to them? Why is it that I hardly hear their sounds these days?

There used to be a lot of insects in my house. In the past few years, they are nowhere to be seen. Where have they gone?

Sometime last year, I and my parents had been to my cousin Anjana's house. She is a professional photographer and she was showing me the photos that she had taken with her DSLR. My dad was particularly interested about the pictures of birds that she had taken. We started talking something about birds, when Anjana told us about how Wi-Fi signals are killing birds and how the aves population was on the decline due to that. I was a bit skeptical regarding her statement and thought that there could be no way this might happen. A few weeks ago, I was telling my dad that I don't see a lot of birds on our terrace these days, when he reminded me of what Anjana had told us last year. I was eager to prove myself that it would be false to blame it on the WiFi. As soon as I reached my office, I Googled on how WiFi and EMFs could affect living organisms. I was shocked when I found this link.

"I have no doubt in my mind that at the present time, the greatest polluting element in the earth's environment is the proliferation of electromagnetic fields. I consider that to be far greater on a global scale, than warming, and the increase in chemical elements in the environment." - Dr. Robert O. Becker, M.D. twice nominated for the Nobel Prize.

Effect on humans:

In line with the selfish civilization that we have been all this while, let us first look at the effects that these EMF radiations have on us. There are about 80 immune system disorders we didn't have 20 years ago. There are now numerous studies showing that microwave radiation does undeniably affect human fertility. Prolonged exposure to radio frequency and microwave radiation from cell phones, cordless phones, cell phone towers, Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies have been linked to physical symptoms including headache, fatigue, sleeplessness, dizziness, changes in brainwave activity, and impairment of concentration and memory. No, I'm not writing a high school essay on the negative effects of using a cell phone. Read on, as I present you more shocking information on this, with proof.

In September 2007, the German government warned its citizenry not to use mobile phones (only in emergencies) and Wi-Fi. In Italy, children were banned in March of 2007 from bringing cell phones to schools. In November 2007, the city of Paris voted to ban Wi-Fi in Public Libraries. In December 2007, an Australian Democrats commissioned discussion paper found microwave radiation from cell phone towers to very likely be behind the drastic rise in disease states like cancer, diabetes, asthma, allergies, and Alzheimer's disease, etc. The symptoms appearing with the installation of a nearby cell phone tower (mast) or a home Wi-Fi (Wireless Internet) and/or DECT phone system include any or all of the following:

A number of researchers have found that while the above symptoms are the initial effects of exposure to radiation emitted by cell phone towers, the long-term effect is indeed a dramatic increase in the risk of cancer. A recent study showed a 23-fold increase in breast cancer and a 121-fold increase in brain tumors for those who lived within 200 meters of a cell-phone base station for five years or longer. It has been found that if a cell-phone mast has been present for five or more years, cancers will start to appear in the areas around the mast where the emissions are strongest. If the mast has been present for close to ten years then cancer clusters clearly emerge.

An excerpt from Sepp Hasslberger's post in newmediaexplorer.org titled "Mobile And Wireless - Largest Biological Experiment"-

"An astronomer once quipped that if Neil Armstrong had taken a cell phone to the Moon in 1969, it would have appeared to be the third most powerful source of microwave radiation in the universe, next only to the Sun and the Milky Way. He was right. Life evolved with negligible levels of microwave radiation (natural electromagnetic field strength of 7.83 Hertz). An increasing number of scientists speculate that our own cells, in fact, use the microwave spectrum to communicate with one another, like children whispering in the dark, and that cell phones, like jackhammers, interfere with their signalling. In any case, it is a fact that we are all being bombarded, day in and day out, whether we use a cell phone or not, by an amount of microwave radiation that is some ten million times as strong as the average natural background. And it is also a fact that most of this radiation is due to technology that has been developed since the 1970s.

As far as cell phones themselves are concerned, if you put one up to your ear, you are damaging your brain in a number of different ways. First, think of a microwave oven. A cell phone, like a microwave oven and unlike a hot shower, heats you from the inside out, not from the outside in. And there are no sensory nerve endings in the brain to warn you of a rise in temperature because we did not evolve with microwave radiation, and this never happens in nature. Worse, the structure of the head and brain is so complex and non-uniform that “hot spots” are produced, where heating can be tens or hundreds of times what it is nearby. Hot spots can occur both close to the surface of the skull and deep within the brain, and also on a molecular level.

Cell phones are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, and you can find, in the packaging of most new phones, a number called the Specific Absorption Rate, or SAR, which is supposed to indicate the rate at which energy is absorbed by the brain from that particular model. One problem, however, is the arbitrary assumption, upon which the FCC’s regulations are based, that the brain can safely dissipate added heat at a rate of up to 1 degree C per hour. Compounding this is the scandalous procedure used to demonstrate compliance with these limits and give each cell phone its SAR rating. The standard way to measure SAR is on a “phantom” consisting, incredibly, of a homogenous fluid encased in Plexiglas in the shape of a head. Presto, no hot spots! But in reality, people who use cell phones for hours per day are chronically heating places in their brain. The FCC’s safety standard, by the way, was developed by electrical engineers, not doctors."

Let us look at the impact on a few life forms now:

Effect on Birds:The sparrows have disappeared completely from the cities at least five years ago. There is ample evidence to suggest that it is indeed long-term exposure to microwave radiation especially from 3G GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) digital-phone technology ­that is killing the birds. Scientists at the Research Institute for Nature and Forests in Brussels, Belgium, have produced the first evidence that mobile phone base stations are affecting the reproductive behaviour of wild sparrows. Fewer house sparrow males were seen at locations within relatively high electric field strengths of GSM base stations.

Alfonso Balmori, a conservation biologist in Valladolid, Spain, reported a significantly lower number of white stork fledglings in nests close to mobile phone transmitters compared to nests further away.

Could the above also be related to the decrease in fertility found in humans living in advanced countries? (There are now numerous research studies supporting this hypothesis.) Balmori also found difference in how the birds behaved close to the phone antennae. Young birds died from unknown causes, and bird couples frequently fought while constructing their nests. Sticks fell to the ground, and the couple failed to make any headway. Some nests were never completed and the storks remained passively in front of the antennae. The bird population is declining by 50 million every year. Mind you, it doesn't mean that 50 million birds die every year, it means that at the end of a year, we are left with 50 million lesser birds than the previous year.

Several million birds of 230 species die each year from collisions with telecommunications masts in the United States during migration. Accidents happen mainly in the night, in fog, or bad weather, when birds might be using the earth's magnetic field for navigation, and could be seriously disoriented by the microwave radiation from telecommunication masts.

Birds (and insects and other small animals) would naturally be the first to obviously be affected by this increase in ambient radiation since naturally they have smaller bodies and hence less flesh to be penetrated by exposure to microwaves. Birds are good candidates as biological indicators for low-intensity electromagnetic radiation (EMR); they have thin skulls, their feathers can act as dielectric receptors of microwave radiation and many species use magnetic navigation. Finally, chicken embryos exposed to microwave radiation from cell phones have shown both deformity and mortality. Some years ago researchers in Russia showed that continuous exposure of the chick embryos during the 21 days of embryonic development resulted in 75 percent of the embryos dying.

The following is a letter on a Google Group from a former telecommunication industry field employee:

"Hi group,
As my username name indicates, I do tower work. and I can assure you that there's more to the things in this article than anyone wants to believe. I've seen an egg cooked between two old Nextel phones when they are at 800 to 900 Mhz, which is their frequency range. I've been on towers where thousands of bees were swarming around me fighting each other. This happens mostly in the fall it seems, and it seems to affect hornets and wasps mostly. I've seen pigeons cooked to death in front of panel antennas and microwave dishes. I don't let my young kids use cell phones. Time will prove that this whole article is true. If anyone here wants to do a good dead rally to rid our earth of cell phones try the towers".

Effect on Insects:
Colony Collapse Syndrome (CCS) poses a serious risk to bees as well as to global agriculture. Bees are critical not only in producing honey, but also serve as the main crop pollinators for one third to one half of the agricultural produce in this country. Bees are pivotal in their role as plant pollinators. Many of the crops that depend on bees are many of the berries and fruits, as well as citrus crops. Additionally bees are critical to maintaining the viability of many of the nut crops that are produced, i.e. cashews, pecans, almonds etc. Another role is that bees are necessary also in pollinating many of the crops that are necessary to establish many of the crops that are used to restore the soil, i.e. clover and other species. There has recently been noticed an epidemic of die-off of bees, or perhaps more correctly the total disappearance of bees from their hives. What is noticed in many of the hives that are put out is that after a certain period of time, is that the hives become vacant or empty. There are no bees to be found. Also what has been noticed is that other opportunistic insects will avoid the hives as well.

Bees use the electromagnetic fields of the earth as a force for orientation. The bees have a gland that is called the mushroom gland, located in the abdomen, which functions much like a compass. The difference is that is relays constant data back to the brain as to where the bee is, much like the function of a flight recorder. This ability to navigate tells the bee where they are in time and space. Research has shown that the mushroom gland is sensitive to the same frequencies that are emitted by cell phones, mast towers or satellites. In essence artificial microwave frequencies jam this mechanism and the bees become disoriented. They cannot figure out where they are, lay down memory tracts and become lost.

So how is the declining population of birds and insects going to affect us?

1/3 of all our fruits and vegetables would not exist without pollinators visiting flowers.

Pollinators play fundamental role in food security. As pollinator numbers decline, price of groceries goes up.

Birds and bats already under assault from communication tower collision mortality – some impacts already having effect at their population level.

An experiment to demonstrate:

Hobbyist bee-keeper Sigfried Vogel after retiring, and now at the age of 76, has enjoyed 15 successful years of honey production. He was housing his bee colonies inside an old wooden truck and until a year ago the beekeeper had four bee colonies in hives behind wooden planks on the truck. This winter Mr. Vogel witnessed the disappearance of all four of his bee hives. The bees had met a tragic and mysterious fate. Vogel offers as evidence - that mobile phone masts have caused the demise of his bee colonies - the fact that his son's colonies, which were placed behind aluminum shielding, have survived. (Aluminum is known to block microwave radiation). More on it here.

What kind of social life are we living without letting other creatures live on this planet, while they have the same rights to live as much as we do? Having said this, the life that we lead is inevitable without mobile phones, Wi-Fi and other devices that cause damage to the environment. What kind of mess has humanity got itself into? From here on, our lives are only going to be more and more dependent wireless technologies, for such is the increasing greed for faster and faster means of communication. What an ironical world we live in - while we are destroying life forms on earth, we're spending billions of dollars trying to find traces of life on Mars!

If you have something to say regarding the impact of EMF in our lives or would like to share your views on this article, do leave a comment below.